Bad Blogger!!!

Wow, have I been bad about keeping this site updated! I just realized that I haven't posted in 2 months, so here I am! Things are going well, we've enjoyed our first Christmas together as a family of four and have survived the early stages of winter. Lili has experienced her first snow days (she's so cute in her snow suit, but she really doesn't know what to do!)

Moses is working like crazy, Max goes to pre-K two days a week and is home with Lili and I the other three days a week. We spend some days running errands or going for playdates or coffee with friends, but many of our days are spent hanging out at home... either just relaxing in our pajamas, or getting things done around the house that I don't normally have time to do when I'm working!

We've had lots of activities since I last posted. We celebrated Max and Moses' birthdays.... we also went to Evansville, IN to visit our friends Misty, Chris, Madisyn & Lyza Melvin. Lyza is exactly one month older than Lili and we were blessed to meet the Melvins in Guatemala when we were both visiting the girls for our first time. We've stayed in touch, become great friends, and were able to go to Evansville for Lyza's first birthday weekend! It was so wonderful getting to visit with them again, and especially to see our girls HOME TOGETHER!!!

Our first Halloween was great.... Power Ranger Max and Little Duck Lili were adorable. The weather was kind of cold, but Aunt Shelly (one of Lili's godmothers) joined us for a little trick-or-treating. Myself, Shelly and Lili headed home early while Daddy and Max continued on in search of more candy. After a quick visit with Grandma Arenas and our traditional McDonald's dinner, we headed home.

November was somewhat quiet... Moses and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. He had his brother Mike come over to watch the kids while he took me to a very nice dinner in Geneva. We had a great time at dinner, stopped for coffee afterwards, and then did a little Christmas shopping before heading home. In addition, some of Moe's coworkers threw a surprise baby shower for Lili and I.... they are such wonderful people and we are so appreciative of their love and support. Everything else in November was just normal daily routine, as well as Doctor appointments, visits with friends, trips to the mall and library, etc.

December brought us to Lili's first birthday. Her actual birthday was on 12/5/06. It snowed a lot that morning, so Max, Lili and I went outside to snowblow the driveway and play in the snow. Lili was fascinated by the snowblower, but otherwise just sat and took it all in. I have some great pictures of her sitting outside just looking around.... I'll try to remember to post one. That night, we went for Chinese food at the same restaurant where we went for Max's first birthday.... very sweet. That weekend, we had a small gathering for Lili's birthday just to have dinner and cake. Considering how many parties and events we've had in Lili's honor (her auction, her shower, her baptism, etc), we wanted to keep her birthday more simple. We had a great time relaxing with family.... and Lili LOVED her cake! She had a small smash cake and dug into it like no child I've ever seen! By the time we took it away from her, more than half of it was gone!!! When I took her to the bathtub to clean her off, I even found icing from the cake inside of her diaper!!!!

We had another night out without the kids in December for Moses' work Christmas party, which was lots of fun. Also, drove to Springfield, IL to get Lili's birth certificate from the State of Illinois since our final adoption decree and name change came in from the attorney. The plan for an overnight stay in Springfield changed when we discovered at 9am that we were finished getting our paperwork and had nothing else to do for the rest of the day! Instead, we turned around and drove home 3 hours, then went to a get together thrown by Moses' boss that evening.

Christmas Eve morning, Max went to work with Moses. I went to visit for a couple of hours with Lili and we all shared goodies with his staff. That evening, we went to Moses' family get-together at his Mom & Dad's. This year was kind of rough.... Lili didn't want to sleep because of the commotion.... and Max (at 5 years old) had a hard time understanding why he had to wait until midnight to open his presents! We made it through the evening, then headed home and finished our last minute Christmas "stuff" before heading to bed.

Got up with the kids on Christmas morning to open gifts.... Lili wasn't very interested in the gift wrap (unless she was eating it!) She loved any toys, etc that made noise and got really angry and screamed loudly when we would take something away from her to remove it from a box or packaging. Max, on the other hand, was in seventh heaven! He loved EVERYTHING that he got and had such fun opening his presents, helping Lili with her presents, and helping us with our presents. He surprised us with his reaction to a couple of his gifts... especially his trip to Disney from Santa.... he didn't seem very interested. Probably because there was no package to unwrap?? Hopefully by the time we go in February, he'll be more excited!

So, day after Christmas, my parents came in town from Wisconsin and will stay until Saturday. We opened our gifts last night with them, and then today my mom helped me to sort through more toys, etc so that we can make room for all of the new stuff that Max got this year!!!!

New Year's Eve will probably be low-key, but that's ok with us. We really prefer just hanging out together as a family and enjoying all four of us being together this year! We hope each of you have a wonderful holiday season, and I promise to try to do better in the New Year about updating this site!!!!